I awoke still aching, with Janice standing over me with a tray for breakfast. "Good morning, Evelyn." Eat your breakfast and we can start the mending process, extract the memories out of your head, and you can be on your merry way."
I was groggy and still confused as I usually am when I first wake up, but I was pretty sure I heard that they were going to extract the memories out of my head. "Did you just say...?"
"Yes, Evelyn. Your memories of the testing. They didn't get removed completely when you took the drugs, so we have to go much more drastic measures to keep you from getting those memories back completely." Janice said as I sat up and started to eat. I wanted so badly to fight every last bit of this, but it wouldn't do me any good.
"Why does it matter so much that I don't keep the memories?" I asked calmly, pushing myself hard to keep me detached. Keep me from launching myself at Janice.
"Think about it, Evelyn. If you got all the memories back, you would have everything you came out of the apocalypse with. You were a wreck, and I hope to heaven that you didn't retain any after memories..."
I shook my head, and Janice continued. "You emerged confused, unstable, heavy amounts of PTSD, depression, and bipolarity that developed from the loneliness you felt in the apocalypse. Worse yet, you were effectively a twelve year old in a seven-year-old's body. Evelyn, if you had kept all of your memories, you would have felt nineteen by now."
I thought about that long and hard. It was such a strange thought to wrap my mind around. "What exactly do you have to do to get my memories?" I asked, boredly.
Janice paused for a moment and then gave her signature smile, which I was getting beyond sick of. "We have to put you under a culling device. With the culling device, we can pick through your brain for any memories you have recently uncovered or those that were still clouded. Then we can destroy them one by one. It will be a long and mentally exhausting process, but if you want to keep your sanity, it's the only option."
The last thing I wanted was to give Janice free range to all of my memories. I also didn't want to let whoever they were holding hostage die either. I couldn't forgive myself if Janice had them killed because I couldn't swallow my pride. "Sounds like a plan," I said handing Janice the empty tray back.
"I'm glad you finally came to your senses, Evelyn." Janice said before leaving again, "I'll be back real soon so we can start the quick healing process. That part will be the easy part. We'll be putting you under and setting to work. Once you awake you will only have some soreness and the very explicit need to stretch."
I waved Janice off and laid back down and buried my face in the hospital bed pillow. I then flipped around, starting to feel a little ancy, and rolled around right off of the bed. I figured I would make a joke by hiding under the bed, but once I was down there I discovered there was one thing in the room I had not seen yet.
There was a small metal vent under the bed, presumably hidden because I could clearly hear voices sounding below. I tilted my ear up to the vent and listened as hard as I could. "Janice is crazy if she thinks she's..."
"A full on memory culling will kill her... It's dangerous!"
"Janice thinks that it would be better that than break her mind with disorders and a strange mental age thing. She has no idea what would happen if she regained all of the information from seven years ago.
"Speaking of... You were there for that right?
"Right. I was one of the testers."
"How is she?"
"She's a good kid, Charlie. She didn't deserve any of this. She's strong and determined. They only kept her because she could be ruthless when she needed to be. I honestly hate the company for putting the fate of their plan on her."
"How did they make sure she succeeded?"
"They didn't. That's the best part. She passed the test with such flying colors that she was trusted to get there all on her ow-"
The door opened behind me again and I flipped out from under the bed. "Boo!" I said to Janice who let out a fake chuckle. I got up and looked at Janice, only able to think about the conversation that I overheard. The culling would kill me.
"Alright let's go. We are going to do the mending surgery first and then give you a chance to get used to your fixed up body." Janice said, and I nodded.
I followed Janice out of the room, my eyes darting everywhere. It was the first time I had seen the outside of my boring holding room since I had come to, so I took in as much as I could. It was a mostly boring white glossy place, but scientists kept smiling at me and nodding to me like they knew me.
I clenched my jaw shut as I realized that they did know me. They got to see through five fake years of my life. They knew me better than I did. After I realized that I started scowling at them.
Soon enough, Janice turned into one of the many rooms. Inside there was a large device and whole team of people all with gloves and masks on. I could see various gases and chemicals on shelves. The scene was a little intimidating, but I swallowed the bile in my throat and laid down under the large device as they told me to.
"Try to relax," Janice told me, but that only made it worse. Eventually, the device closed completely around me. I started wriggling, feeling very claustrophobic, but eventually, a reddish-brown gas filled the chamber, and I went completely out cold.
There were no dreams when I was down. It felt like only a few seconds had passed before I suddenly shot straight up. The device had been opened up again. I looked down to see my shirt was slightly cut a part to reveal a completely clean clavicle. I smiled, looking down at my stomach and then my leg.
I was back to normal. It felt good to not have a cast prodding my neck, and just because I could, I rolled my head around and wriggled my left shoulder. "Good as new." One of the scientists smiled at me, and despite my hatred for all of them, I thanked him. I was too excited to have my full body back.
I still felt slightly sore, but I got straight up and was feeling pretty great. That was until I had to see Janice's evil face again. "Evelyn, glad the surgery went well. I hate to take you again right away, but you'll like this."
I reluctantly followed Janice again into the busy corridors of what was probably DOME. A question jumped into my mind. "What does DOME stand for exactly?"
Janice just looked at my as we walked and smiled. "DOME stands for the Department of Malignant Epidemiology. Where you are right now is called the DOME Institution where we study very experimental man made diseases and viruses."
I wanted to blow this place up almost as much as I wanted to blow up the Black Cobra. I just nodded and kept up on our walk. It was a shorter walk to the next location. Janice sent me in alone to a room with a fresh set of clothes and shower with soap and all of the other luxuries that I had been missing out on.
This time, I didn't take any time to hesitate like I did with the food. We hardly had the water to clean ourselves as much as we'd like to at the school. It was a godsend that I could finally scrub off the blood and grime that had been building up over the last weeks.
I stripped down and entered the shower. It was already on and steaming. I didn't know how much time was passing as I stood there and cleaned myself up, and I didn't care. The water was warm and felt better than any shower ever had before. Besides, Janice and her plot to kill me by ripping memories out of my head could wait.
Once I finally tore myself from the shower, I dried myself off and put on the fresh clothes. The clothes made me laugh with a horrible humor. A purple tank top and a pair of jeans. It was like they had been watching me. Oh wait, they had.
I threw the clothes on, freshened up at the sink that was also fully stocked, and opened the door back into one of the side hallways. Janice was waiting for me. "How was that?" She asked. I smiled and played along.
"Rejuvenating." I almost exhaled the words as I stretched my arms. It was hard to pretend to be pleased after that. Even with all that was going on, at least I felt clean and whole again. I had almost forgotten what it was like.
"What's next?" I joked. "Five-star meal? Hot tub?" Janice shook her head slightly.
"It's culling time. We want to get it done before we have too many returned memories to remove. Those are the more painful ones. I want you to be comfortable with this so you can ease into it. You get to have another meal but with the man who will be running your culling."
I remembered the conversation that I had overheard again. My heart started pounding but I tried not to think about it. "Let's go meet my personal, culler!" I said trying to hide my fear. I followed Janice through more halls to yet another room. This room had a rugged young man in it- no older than 16. He had black curly hair and an honest smile which he directed at me.
"This is your culling partner. He will be extracting and deleting the memories from your head. You two will be spending a lot of time together here very soon. Get to know each other and eat. I will be back in half an hour." Janice left the room and I sat across from the teen. A tray was already waiting for me.
"Nice to meet you, Evelyn. I'm Charlie." The boy- Charlie, stuck his hand out for me to shake. I shook her hand awkwardly but he just shook off the awkwardness. "I don't bite, so don't worry. I'm not as scary as Janice."
I smiled, but I didn't say anything. As far as I was concerned, he was as bad as the rest of them. I started to eat and ignore him, but I saw a napkin slide towards me and I snuck a quick glance at it.
There was a hastily scribbled note on it. I watched Charlie move a pen under his tray for a second and then continued eating himself. I read the note quickly and returned to my food.
Evelyn, DON'T look right now, but there is a camera behind me in a corner, so I can't really tell you this, but the culling could kill you. The culling is completely private, so I am going to have to log your memories, but I won't try and force them out of your head. There is a chance I can get you out of this.
"I know this all must be pretty scary to you, huh?" He asked aloud, picking up and wiping his face with the napkin that I just read. "Don't worry too much. The culling won't hurt at all, and I will be the only to see any of the memories, so you have no reason to be embarrassed."
He gave me a smile, but this time I could see through it. Somehow, some way, Charlie was on my side. "Are you sure it won't hurt?" I asked with mock concern. "Miss Janice said that it would be extremely taxing on my mental state."
"It could drive you a little nutty, but I will make sure you can have breaks and we can talk in between. I will make this as easy as possible for you." Charlie took a drink of his water. On the bottom of his water was one word. Talk.
He had been prepared for me to be stubborn, so he had planted another note for me to catch. I let a smile touch my lips. This guy was clever. "What did you say about the memories being private?" I asked.
"Janice wants to give you as much privacy as possible, so no one else will be entering and there will be no cameras. You only have to put up with me." Charlie waggled his eyebrows, "I know that won't be very hard for you."
I didn't even have to fake a laugh. My relief was too great. I was going to be saved. I had so much that I wanted to say to Charlie, but I knew it would have to wait until we were in the culling room. Charlie soon offered to take my tray and garbage. He disposed of his mysterious notes and pen himself without flashing them to the camera at all.
We sat in silence for awhile, until Janice came back once again. "I know you are getting tired of seeing me, but this should be the last time for a while, I assure you." Janice chuckled like she had told some sort of funny joke, and then beckoned Charlie and me to follow her.
We followed close behind through the winding halls of the DOME Institution. "I hope that the two of you can work together well. Evelyn, is he okay? We can choose a better fit if you want us to." Janice said. I wanted to laugh, but I held all emotion in.
"He's okay," I said in a melancholy tone. "I would prefer no one other than myself to be there, but seeing as that's not an option, he'll do." Charlie beamed at me for my acting skills, and Janice was satisfied with my answer.
She brought us farther than she had before, deep into the lab where it started to get dim. Then she suddenly turned into a very dim room. Inside was a larger device, which I assumed I would be strapped to. Across from it, a chair for Charlie, and a monitor, presumably for viewing whatever fuzz of my memories remained.
The room made me uncomfortable and I shuddered, even though I already had perfect cause to trust Charlie, I didn't quite yet. I held back and scanned for cameras. Nothing as visible as were in the holding room.
"Lay against the device, Evelyn and I'll strap you in." Charlie said and smiled, "Don't worry, it's not going to hurt and will do you good in the end." I glared at him slightly and stepped towards the device.
"I don't need your comfort, you moron." I retorted. Charlie just ignored me and strapped me in. I turned back to Janice. "Is he going to do that the whole time? Act like an idiot?"
Janice shrugged. "We can get you someone else if you want us to, but Charlie is just trying to be nice. Relax." I took a really fake deep breath that Janice bough. I watched Charlie fight to snigger.
Janice flipped the machine on and left. "Good luck Charlie. Good luck Evelyn. You'll be fine when it's over, I promise." She shut the door and a mad giggle left my lips. She promised? From what I heard it could kill me. Bring it on, Janice. I won't be losing my mind today.